A typical dish of the Val Tidone area in the province of Piacenza is the famous ‘the Battaro’, a kind of calzone made of very thin bread dough, baked in a wood oven for a few minutes: in contact with the heat it swells and is immediately stuffed with cold cuts and local cheeses.
This unique substitute of the traditional native pizza is consumed as soon as it comes out freshly baked and it represents one of the countless, delicious attacks on the weight line from which in this country we must constantly defend ourself!
One day, the owner of the local hardware store in Pianello was telling us of when he cooked more than a hundred in his pizza oven built right his the garden to feed the family and friends who came to celebrate the birthday of his youngest son and how they came out exceptionally good thanks to the flour purchased at the Franzini Mill, the historic mill in the valley here in the countryside.
The recipe of the mixture for Bataro in fact requires the use of 2 \ 3 of white flour and 1 \ 3 of corn flour. Curious as always we went to visit the mill and we were in for a pleasant surprise when we saw that the Mill supervision was carried out by three young entrepreneurs.
Today in Italy it is very difficult to find people of this age range involved in activities that are as challenging as this one but Andrea, his wife Monia and sister Laura decided after studying law and agrarian science to buythe mill which belonged to the family for generations and to embark in this wonderful adventure.
As you can probably imagine the work is very tiring but seeing these kids undertake and describe the products that derive from such a passion was really invigorating.
With extreme gentleness they welcomed us and showed their untreated flour, all-natural product line, stone ground grains which helps keep intact the nutritional value of the grains in question, gracefully and nicely packaged.
That’s it. Graceis the right word to describe the faces, the work and the attitude of these three young people from Piacenza who revived the ancient tradition of this family.
[socialWarfare]